Costly proposal for reducing accidents

I’m writing in response to the Sept. 24 article about the laser detection system for the railroad overpass on West Central Avenue. Based on 30 accidents in 6 years with a total expense of $15,000, that works out to be $250 per accident with 5 accidents per year.

ODOT says that the laser detection system could, not would, reduce the number of accidents by 65 to 70 percent.

If we use the lower rate of a 65 percent reduction, that means that there could potentially be only 10 accidents over the 6 years after the detection system is in operation. If we take the expense of 20 accidents prevented over 6 years at $250 the savings is $5,000.

If we now take the $315,000 that ODOT and MORPC are going to spend on this detection system and divide it by the $5,000 saved every 6 years, it will take approximately 378 years to recoup the ROI for this project. The city of Delaware may not be funding any of this project, but they certainly are a participant in an obviously gross waste of taxpayer dollars.

All things considered, dealing with such a small number of accidents at such a small expense for each one, in my opinion, is certainly a more responsible solution to the problem.